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Jacko Law Group Blog

Jacko Law Group, PC (“JLG”) published its monthly Legal Tip, written by its Attorney, Robert Boeche this January. Boeche’s Legal Tip provides an overview of some of the new corporate laws affecting businesses. While this article is geared towards California businesses, several other states have substantially similar laws in place, or are in the process of enacting such laws. Further, out-of-state companies that operate in California are often subject to the rules of the state, so it is important to be aware of how such rules may impact your business.

Four individuals have been charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in an alleged scheme involving two Silicon Valley-based companies. Christian B. Keller (“Keller”), a financial analyst employed by Applied Materials, Inc. and later Rovi Corporation, is accused of using his access to confidential information about the companies to organize an insider trading ring. Keller, along with John Gray (“Gray”), allegedly enlisted Kyle Martin (“Martin”) and Aaron Shepard (“Shepard”) to participate by trading in their respective brokerage accounts. At the time Gray was an analyst at Barclays, Martin was employed at a Beverly Hills car dealership and Shepard worked as a car stereo installer.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged broker-dealer Oppenheimer & Co. (“Oppenheimer”) with two courses of misconduct relating to its customer, Gibraltar Global Securities (“Gibraltar”). Oppenheimer has admitted to the wrongdoing which resulted in a $10 million fine. Oppenhiemer was also fined $10 million by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”).

According to a FinCEN news release, Oppenheimer willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to establish and implement an adequate anti-money laundering program, failing to conduct adequate due diligence on a foreign correspondent account, and not complying with requirements under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act.